Hi everyone,
I’ve been accepted and offered a position at two elementary schools in Taichung through the TFETP. That said, I have to apply for a work permit on my own - how do I go about this?
I’ve found this website: EZ Work Taiwan which seems like it’s for work permits, but I just can’t figure out where I am supposed to go. I’ve looked at the Online Application section and click into the “Work Permit for Professional Foreign Worker” tab, but the school section for this seems like it’s focused on managerial jobs. I’m just kinda lost as to where to begin on this. If anyone has some ideas/knows how to go about this, I’d really appreciate some help on it.
Schools are realizing they LOVE teachers from the Philippines because they set no boundaries. Exceed 20 classes per week? Filipino teachers don’t demand overtime. Teach kindy? Unlike those stupid teachers from the US and South Africa, the Filipina teachers don’t complain that that’s illegal. Stay late to have meetings or prep for events? White teachers cite their contract end time while Filipino teachers just do what they’re told. The reason? “This is way less work than we have as teachers back home, so we don’t mind.”
We’re entering a new era in English teaching in taiwan. Good luck to anyone from western countries who’s been here awhile. You liked your basically part time job + full time desk warming but it turns out you are replaceable. People who think NT$80k / month is a fantastic salary are willing to bend over backwards to show their worth (even though the vast majority of them openly admit they don’t speak English as a first language)
There are over 40,000 people in the Facebook group for teachers from the Philippines looking to teach English in Taiwan. For people with teaching licenses in the Philippines who are looking to come to Taiwan, the workload is significantly less than what they have back home, the pay is about 3x higher, and they do not even need to prove that they are native speakers of English (while some really are native speakers, I’ve met a LOT of FETs this year who can’t follow a basic English conversation and make errors in their speech that one should not be making as an English teacher)
Unlike foreign teachers from the originally listed, pre-2020 “native speakers of English” countries, this isn’t just a nice opportunity to go live in a land of supposedly better infrastructure, “free” healthcare, “lower cost of living”, etc., etc., (all mostly lies, many of us conclude, the longer we live here…) but for a much lower paycheck than “back home”. For teachers in the Philippines, the TFETP program provides a life-changing amount of money. And you don’t even need a teaching license anymore. If you’re willing to work for 50k/month for one school year under the MOE English Teaching Assistant program, you can now get shoveled into the TEFTP program (and licensed teacher pay scale and benefits) for the following years, without any teaching credentials at all. All you need for that is a BA.
Meanwhile, if you’re American and you actually do have a real teaching license and any experience at all, you’re looking at a nice US$65k+ or so per year in any district worth working in (for ESL), in medium cost of living areas in the US. Easy six figures in places like NYC and the Bay Area. That’s for 180 contact days per year (compared to the 200+ of Taiwan) and any summer camps or weekend activities that you’re expected to work are always going to be for additional pay. That’s also a solid 2.5 months of summer vacation wherein you could pick up a job that pays you another solid amount of money. (In Taiwan, your contract prohibits this). You will never be asked to come to work just to sit there during breaks in the US because you are respected as someone who should be capable of planning your own lessons and getting your own stuff in order without being chained to a desk. Also, the US school day is 8-3, not 7:30-4:30, so you work a full less day every week compared to Taiwan.
There is an active push to get more teachers from the Philippines and the TFETP program is driving it, as they are doing everything they can to drive out teachers with decades of experience teaching in Taiwan’s public schools. To this I say, go for it Taiwan. You haven’t bothered to do anything about your teaching methods or useless textbooks over the past 20+ years. It’s best you save a bit of money on airfare by importing teachers from the country directly south of you, even if many of them are just as good at English as your own English teachers. Bilingual 2030 for the win!
They actually go through a tougher selection criteria and process. (For the FETP program) However… a few bad apples seem to be getting through.
Even worse for private schools with many of them not even properly vetting them…
It is… however… the gravy train ain’t going to run forever. I see a massive changeup happening in a few years. I.e… they close the program down… then open up a new program focused on Filipino teachers with pay the same as local teachers with less benefits… (I.e. Less holidays and no retirement benefits) - EVEN THAT would still be life changing for most Filipinos…
Been hearing rumours that this is in the works.
Here how it could happen in the next 5 years…
They all of a sudden don’t renew everyone’s contract and thank everyone for their participation and make a big deal about the program…
Then! They immediately reopen it under a different name with Filipino teachers the focus and salary and benefits identical to local temporary teachers (minus the 6% retirement for those not on APRC/JFRV).
I don’t see why they don’t hire local Taiwanese teachers and pay them 50-70k I think lots of young Taiwanese with BETTER English than many of them would be willing to take that job.
Really… if I’m being honest Filipino teachers could be used as a way to dampen salaries as they would be willing to take far less than a Taiwanese with comparative English.
They implemented the “core competency” system. However, the exams are still based off the textbooks so teachers have a choice. Teach life skills using the new core competency system the MOE wants… or teach students to pass the exams so the they don’t look bad at their job.
I think it is better to just hire Taiwanese at this point…
Absolutely. For most it is. Many factory workers are now doing a quick teachers crash course to get a license and coming back to Taiwan. (It is actually quite scary easy to get a teachers license from there. - Not as bad as the Illinois one though…)
I’d say about half the FETs I’ve met from the Philippines consistently use strange to me grammar structures and throw in Tagalog words when they can’t remember the English one. This mostly annoys me because I’ve met tons of people from “non-English” countries who can’t teach in the public schools at all but are indistinguishable from a native English speaker. Why not just open the program up to any foreigner who can prove they’re at at least a CEFR B2 level? Maybe even bump that up to a C1 level, since Taiwanese “bilingual” school English teachers allegedly have B2 proficiency in order to teach at those school (I call b.s. If I have to listen to one more PhD here give a presentation about “learning apes” when they are talking about apps… You’re not at a B2 level if you can’t be understood by “a patient listener who is not accustomed to hearing speech by a learner of the language”. Can’t distinguish basic English vowel sounds = automatically cannot be higher than B1, as this impacts comprehension to someone not accustomed to those kinds of mistakes in speech)
I would have told you you were crazy if you said this five years ago. Now, however, I wouldn’t be surprised if TFETP (and direct hires of foreign teachers to public schools, as those are still under the MOE but technically not the same program) basically stops recruiting from anywhere but the Philippines in the next 2-3 years (just ignoring applications from holders of other countries’ passports, maybe renewing existing contracts but with more restrictions like no flight allowance for family members). Then they can just claim that there simply isn’t interest from other countries (and there shouldn’t be. Seriously, if you actually have a real (not emergency/sub) teaching license from anywhere in “The West”, you’re selling yourself short by working in any of the public schools in Taiwan 2024). From there, they can easily create a new program (TFETP was “FET” until 2020 when the only thing that made that a new program was India and the Philippines became classified as English-speaking countries)
But what I imagine will happen is that they pull a fast one like they did with the FET program a few years back – In June, long after everywhere has long ago finished recruiting for the following school year, they announce further restrictions on how one can get a housing stipend, more limits on how to get flight reimbursements (lots of Filipina FETs this year told me their school refused to pay for their husbands’ flights. They didn’t push back. Easy to say "ya’ll weren’t using it, so we dropped it), etc., etc.
I will forever push back against this and point out that after the additional bonuses and retirement benefits that local teachers receive, they have a much higher dollar for dollar income/benefits than FETs with the same amount of experience. (outlying islands pay an additional 10k/month to all local teachers, I know teachers in Taipei getting paid 14.5 months/year vs. FET 11+1 months)
edit: I realized you said temporary teachers. Ouch. That’s probably not going to work. The MOE ETA program went from 40k/month (housing included) to 50k/month (housing included) because 40k was deemed too low (actually, I think it’s illegally too low, as you need to be paid 2x minimum wage to get a work permit)
The Taiwanese teachers I meet with great English tend to teach other subjects. The teachers I meet with passable but actually rather embarrassing (when you consider their job) English are the English teachers. They don’t have any reason to improve their pronunciation or ability to form grammatically correct sentences because no one cares.
Remember also that people here use monthly salaries with their minds on “that means 14-16 months pay/year”, so 50-70k/month x 11 is not competitive pay compared to local teachers (who tend to be in the 55-68k/month x14-15 months range as it is)
I say just stop hiring foreign teachers all together. If you’re going to hire teachers from the Philippines who aren’t native English speakers, why are you bothering hiring foreign teachers at all?
Have you seen what they do in the schools all day? It’s not even based around passing tests anymore. It’s just dumb mindless repetition of English the kids don’t even understand in an effort to make it look like they learned something when they didn’t.
Seriously, it makes more sense to end the FET program all together.
No idea what Illinois did to you (I thought they had pretty annoyingly complex standards for teachers? I know people who need like 100 hours of PD per year or something crazy to maintain their license). But you don’t need a teaching license to work in the public schools here anymore. You just need to do one year as an ETA through the MOE program and then you can work as an FET in lieu of having a teaching license.
If you are from the US, you can a substitution license from the state of Illinois for about 50 dollars. That’s it. I almost did it just to throw on my resume, but decided to save the money lol
Edit - You don’t even need to be from Illinois, just anywhere in the US.
I don’t think they accept sub licenses anymore for the TFETP program. That was a work around for FET but I think now, with the standards lowered (if you worked in an MOE school ever for a year, for example, hey Fulbright ETAs with your 40k/month “stipend”, take note!) , you can just be in the TFETP program going forward
It doesn’t mention sub licenses at all, so it’s probably OK. I guess individual schools might have their own standards (I’ve seen postings for public schools that emphasize no sub licenses accepted). More reason for anyone who actually has a teaching license to get out now.
